Episode 65: How Virtual Health Coaches Can Harness the Power of Local SEO

Hi Welcome back to the show. So happy to have you here recording this intro for my bathrobe with my cup of coffee in my hand. And I'm really, I'm shocked to say I'm excited about this episode. No offense to the guest. It's a fence to the topic SEO. Search engine optimization is always something that just kind of, I don't know, frustrates me, eludes me.

I've taken classes, I've done all the things, and I still just get really confused, to be honest, about all the different things involved when it comes to SEO. But it is legitimately one of the most important things in your business, I think. And I teach social media, so if I'm saying it, then Yeah. You being able to be, to show up in search when someone is looking for the answer that you can provide is just invaluable.

And it's going to give you a lot more longevity and then not really feeling like you have to be in that hamster wheel of, you know, new, new, new, and more, more, more, and all of that. So my guest today, Laura and I have. What I think is a really helpful and productive conversation on some actual things that you can do, like, not like, uh, uh, you know, I've left SEO conversations sometimes and been like, wait, so now.

Like I get it, but like, what do I do? So today we actually walked through some really specific examples. Like, you know, I'm a sleep coach for menopausal women. Um, we walked through some super specific things like that. And, um, I'm actually about to work with Laura. So I'm in my own business for my own website.

So my guest today, Laura Dewatt is a seasoned SEO strategist for female health and wellness service providers. So she says she helps you call in more clients with the power of your website. How she got into this, she's a really cool story. She has her like doctorate or master's or something in like oceanography or something.

She talks about that. It's crazy, but she built two successful businesses just through SEO. And so she really has that firsthand experience and she's a personal trainer and she's really, she's been able to fill her personal training roster simply by, you know, ranking really well on her website. So without further ado, I hope you enjoy this episode.

Welcome to Holistic Marketing Simplified, a podcast for health and wellness professionals looking to simplify their marketing. I'm your host, Molly Cahill. And this podcast is brought to you by My Marketing Roadmap, which is a five episode private audio training. That's kind of like this podcast, but not exactly because it's not available to the general public.

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My name is Dr. Kimmy, and I'm a pediatric and prenatal chiropractor in Virginia, and I listen to holistic marketing simplified. Okay. Take two, Laura, thank you so much for being on the podcast. I'm so happy to be back. And it's an extra opportunity to speak with you. So this is a treat. I say take two, because the first, just to be totally transparent, well, first of all, my internet went out mid episode, which we could have just picked up and finish the episode on another day.

But after reflecting, I was like, you know, I don't love the recording because I feel like just being vulnerable here, like, I have taken SEO courses. I've done all that. And I still don't feel like I was a good interviewer because I feel like sometimes you have to understand a topic at least at a certain level to be able to ask good questions.

And I felt like I was just like, wait, what? I don't think I did enough preparation just to be totally honest, to make it an episode where it was going to leave you, the listeners, with Tips and things you could actually do rather. I felt like the, the direction I took the conversation unfortunately would have left you being more confused.

And Laura has such a wealth of knowledge that it did not want to waste her expertise. I just rerecord with, like, now that we have a certain focus in mind, because you're just like so brilliant. And it's so funny. I even thought Laura was like, I need, maybe I should just hire Laura to help me with SEO on my website.

And as soon as we got on to record, she's like, Hey, we should do this again. And I should do a live audit of your website. I'm like, yes, we are on the same page. So thank you so much for being patient with me. And yeah, this is great. I'm, I'm really happy to, to be here. And I think it's worth the extra time to make sure folks leave with some things that they can do that the, like that the average normal business owner can go do.

Yeah. And it's just like a, aside from SEO, but all things in business, it's like, I don't really look at much of anything as a failure. I don't go, Oh, that day failed or whatever. I look at it. It's like, wow, that was a really good learning opportunity. I'm kind of glad my internet went out because I got to reflect back on.

So yeah, I think of everything as a learning moment. So tell us a little bit about you. You have a unique. I did your more formal intro, but you have a unique way that you came into doing SEO, which let's first, let's define what is SEO before you say how you came into doing it. Yeah. So for anyone who is new to the subject or unclear on the subject, SEO is simply the art of getting Google to serve up your website at the top of search results for relevant search queries.

So when someone goes to Google and types in something related to the services and solutions you provide, you want to be one of the first results. And that's what SEO gets you. Yep. And today we're going to do a really specific, um, cause I have a lot of health and life coaches who've listened to the podcast.

We're going to do a very specific example of health coach, Google, like search engine optimization stuff. So like I said, you kind of took a unique path to get here. Like, it's not like you have this digital marketing whole past. No way. I am. Um, I actually have a PhD in oceanography, so I, I do not. Yeah, I don't come from a marketing background, so.

In 2017, I left, well, in 2018, I left my academic position and I became a personal trainer for pregnant and postpartum people and a birth doula, and that's obviously like a hard pivot, if you can even call it a pivot, right, and so I had to learn everything about business, everything about marketing, and in 2018, Twenty, obviously, I had to take it all online.

So I had to like throw out everything I already learned and learn it again. When I took my business online, my understanding of online marketing is that it was social media. Right? That online marketing equals social media. Social media equals online marketing. As someone coming to this, right? With no formal business background.

And I don't hate social media. Yeah. But I, but I'm not a. I'm not an influencer, you know, I didn't get into this because I wanted to be on social media all the time and I just was not thriving there. And so I began to really think that maybe I just wasn't going to be able to, to cut it. When I started looking at the pieces that I did really enjoy, it was writing the really long captions.

Oh, interesting. Right? Like, I can't, I mean, I mean, I'm a scientist. I'm a researcher. I am very academic. I love to write and to teach. And so those 2200 characters, that's where I was at. And I started taking those and putting them onto my website. And then I started getting some traffic through my website.

And then I started to research. The why behind that. And I started to learn about SEO and I started to really pivot my efforts and invest in SEO. And over time I was able to fill my client roster, build a wait list, all from my website. And I didn't get rid of my social media, but I've also, as far as I know, never gotten a personal training client from my social media.

It was more of a nurture platform. My clients came from my website. The two things I want to say to that one is I think a lot of people assume, but cut just because I teach mostly Instagram and email marketing, that that's the only place I am, or I invest. That just happens to be the platforms I enjoy.

And I know a lot about them to teach them. It does not mean that I don't also have. So if you do, I'm a firm believer and you do have to have these other components because typically what happens, I find in Instagram is becoming more search friendly now than it used to be, but if I'm looking for a very specific Thing and I'll use a off the wall example.

Um, we're looking to do some things in our bathroom, right? I can't really go into the Instagram search bar for that specific. I was looking for like the specific picture of like a vanity that I wanted. Like, I'm going to go to Google for that. Right. And so I think that's the big thing of why you need both because I think of social media as more of like, not just behind the scenes, but it's kind of the more casual, like, I kind of been getting a vibe, like feel of who you are.

But it's, and it's more of like a, a networking thing, you know, Oh, I sent you, Hey, Oh, you're looking for a doula. Let me send you my friend, Laura's Instagram profile. Because then, you know, she gets to see behind the scene photos of births you've attended and things like that. Not that she couldn't see that on your website, but I feel like my age more to, I don't know how I'm 37.

Like a lot of times we speak in Instagram profiles versus sending each other websites, but then ultimately people end up on your website. To do anything more serious, like, Oh, let me go check out all their options of this or whatever, or, um, are they like a legit business? And then I think other times it happens the other way around, you go to Google first, you find their website, assuming they, Have good SEO and have, you know, implemented the things that you teach.

And then maybe they find your, your social. So I think they go hand in hand, but yeah. So I don't want to ever be able to think you teach Instagram. Like that must be the thing that like the only thing I'm like, Oh no. Like, honestly, the majority of my. Revenue comes from my email list, really, because my website, I need to work with you.

I need help with my SEO. Um, Can I just say something else about the example you just gave? Yeah. Where are you going to go to find the contractor to install that? Oh, Google. 100%. Right. I mean, here's the thing. People are still going to Google to find answers to their questions, to find their service providers.

People are still going to Google to solve their problems. And so if you're not there, you're not getting found. And that business is going to go to someone else. Yeah. I always think of it more like, so I, this is, I know we're not talking about YouTube specifically, but I have a student who they film these really well done YouTube videos and they were repurposing them for Instagram.

Well, when they put it on Instagram, they kept in the really long like intro of like their logo and the music. And I'm like, This doesn't work on Instagram because of the intent of the user. When you go to YouTube and you're searching low back pain stretches, you're willing to sit through a three to five second intro because you went searching for that content.

You're just scrolling and the algorithm serves it up to you. You're not going to sit through a three to five second intro. So YouTube is also, I would say probably, you know, what is it the second largest? Yeah. Um, so I think that example applies there where it's like with Google and SEO, like you want to be the result of the thing someone is like actively looking for.

And it's just like a difference in your approach, I think. Yeah. So if you think of like, like the buyer stages of awareness, Google is sending you problem and solution aware traffic. You know, when it comes to a website, I wouldn't even consider targeting problem unaware people. Yeah. And if you're, if you're not sure what Laura is talking about, I actually have a podcast episode on awareness levels.

We'll link that in the show notes. But in social media, you are right? Because you're, you're just pushing your content in front of people who may have no idea what you do and the problems you solve. And so maybe you're introducing these concepts for the first time. So in some ways you are, you're targeting people at totally different places in their journey, potentially.

Yeah, I think about an example of that is just to give a quick. Uh, like I said, you can go back for more in depth to that podcast episode, but I have a friend who is a doula, but she's also a birth photographer. So her, her getting her doula certificate really was just to be honest, a way of her getting around being in the hospital during COVID.

But, um, It's like, what if you didn't even know that that existed, right? So that's what Laura is talking about in terms of problem, or what is it? Solution. So problem and solution aware versus people totally unaware. Yeah. Like they're like, Oh, maybe my husband can snap some pictures on his phone, but then maybe you're scrolling through Instagram and you're getting served up reels.

Your algorithm probably knows you're pregnant based on things you've searched already. And all of a sudden you see that, Oh my gosh, there's such thing as a new, uh, for, I mean, a birth photographer that exists, then they're going to go to Google and say, birth photographer in my area. So I do think the two go hand in hand for sure.

Absolutely. So, I mean, here's the thing. I don't think anyone should just be on one platform. I'm not advocating that people only rely on SEO, just as you're not advocating that people are only relying on Instagram. We all benefit from having diversity in our marketing approaches. There's a million reasons why I love SEO and I teach SEO.

For folks whose primary platform is Instagram, I still, or ads. Right. Or, oh my gosh, if we think about all the different ways that you could market, but essentially SEO can compliment your efforts on all these other platforms, just as those platforms can amplify your SEO efforts, right? There's a synergy between all of these different marketing channels.

And as per your own capacity, the more channels that you're on, the, the wider your message is going to spread. So I don't want to go too far down this question because we, like I said, but I think this does serve the example person we're going to use is like our muse. Well, but one place I think about how your SEO.

Is more of a investment, like in the long game. I have a friend who used to have a multi, like a huge blog. And during the pandemic she made, I can't even remember. It was like 200, 000 in one month off of a blog post she had written. Like three years before about different meat subscriptions, because it was during the pandemic and people were getting groceries delivered.

Now this is an example of affiliate marketing, which is not what we're going to be talking about today. But my point is she cashed in on something she had optimized three years before. So it definitely is a long game and it's more like if, if you get into digital marketing, cause you want passive income, like hello, SEO, like, yeah, it's work.

But. I think about like how to translate this to out of affiliate marketing and into one on one service providers or health coaches, life coaches, doulas, personal trainers, whatever is I've gotten into homeopathy a lot recently. And anytime I'm Googling certain symptoms with what remedy matches that symptom, a different homeopath is ranking in the results.

And it ultimately led me to booking a consult. An actual consult with a homeopath for me, Googling, you know, this type of fever for this thing. So I think, yeah, that's why it's so important and why I need to get better. Yeah. I need to get better with my SEO long game. Yeah. So where, where do people start?

If they're not, I I'm someone who does consider myself like pretty tech savvy and I've done some SEO training and I still get really confused. So I don't know if you just kind of want to start with like the difference in like, Your website, you know, header tag, you know, the, the header tag is not even the right word, but like the, the, the main things you have on your website versus like your content on your blog.

So those things are all related, right? When it comes to SEO, keywords and content are clean. Google is not going to refer traffic to your website if you are not producing high quality content that is relevant to your target audience. Your website has to be a destination. And if it's not, then Google is not going to refer traffic there, right?

There has to be a reason for people to visit. So before, before going down the rabbit hole of like the tech side of things, or even putting a lot of effort into some of the other pillars of SEO, Making sure that you've got great content and good keywords on your website, that's where you start. And so keywords apply to every page on your website.

Whether that's your homepage, whether that's your blog. The keywords still matter. You might use slightly different kinds of keywords. You know, on your services page, you're using more transactional type keywords. The title of your service, for people who are searching, who know they need that thing. And so they're typing it in, you know, for example, like, adult sleep coach, you know, someone who types that in knows what they need and that will hopefully lead them to your services page versus your blog pages where your keywords might be of a more informational nature.

You know, what can I do to fall asleep in under 30 minutes? What type of questions might your ideal clients be typing into Google before they know that they need you? But either way, it's still a keyword. We're still using them in the titles of the page. We're still using it in our content, whether it's the blog or whether it's the home page or whether it's the services page.

Yeah, that makes, that makes perfect sense. Like the difference there. Okay. So do you feel like everyone has to have a blog to be able to rank or do you, yeah, I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. I'm going to say yes. It is a nuanced yes. There's a difference between local SEO and broad reach SEO. And it is easier to rank for something locally than it is nationally or globally, because you're competing with a smaller pool of people.

And so without a blog, maybe with other SEO ranking factors, maybe you could come up and search locally, but you're not going to come up. For a broad reach search for national global search blogs are really important because they help establish your expertise. Google is not going to see you as an expert.

If you only have five pages on your website and neither will a cold lead. If someone just finds you through a Google search and there's like no meat on your website, they're probably going to keep looking. Also consider that every. blog post that you write is another door to your website. It's another opportunity to get found.

It's another keyword opportunity. And so when you have fewer pages on your website, there's just fewer ways to get found in search. And so for all of my clients, I advise them all to have a blog. Now the blog doesn't have to be filled with like the traditional like dry encyclopedic posts. Now that's what I enjoy writing, as you might imagine.

I love writing a good, and I still, you know, I, I, I try not to make them too encyclopedic, right? But I do like writing informational posts. Yeah. But you can use your blog to write case studies. studies to interview other local practitioners. If you're a local service provider, you can use it to showcase your podcast, right?

Writing really juicy podcast show notes. If you have a YouTube channel, that can be where your transcripts go. There's other ways. There's a diverse set of ways to create a knowledge base on your website. That all fill out the blog feature. And I think if you are serious about wanting website traffic, you've got to fill out that blog somehow.

Yeah. But you can play to your strengths and your interests. I, I like, that's a really good point. Let's um, let's stay on that like adult sleep coach example, because in our previous conversation, we found out, like, I was like, I did not, I did not ask Laura to say this. She, I always advise any health coach, life coach, midwife doula, any, even like functional medicine providers who are starting to see people on telehealth.

I think there's this. And I don't know if even misconception is the right word, but there's a, Ooh, I'm no longer bound by my geography. Now I can see clients anywhere. Like, and I'm like, well, hold on. Let's let's back up a second. Why would we not? Want to, you know, use the power of our local, because I think about the example I always use is one of my, my favorite virtual assistants I ever had.

She, I interviewed three or four different people and they were all great. And their price, their hourly rate was all about the same. They all had about the same skillset. And I ended up hiring a gal who was just, Like close to me. Geographically. We only met in person one time. So it's not like I was hiring her to work with her in person necessarily, but it was just something about having that proximity.

I think adds an extra layer of trust in like, Oh, they're, they're close to me. I don't know. It's like, it does something for us emotionally to want to hire them. So this, this is something that you've done in your business. And again, I was like, Oh my gosh, so funny that you and I agree on this. And I was like, I did not ask Laura to say this.

I swear. So let's talk about how you do your own SEO. Like you could see people anywhere in the whole world, you know, for doing your services, but you use a lot of local in your own marketing. And yeah. So let's talk about that. Like the virtual versus local. Yeah. And so specifically here, we're talking about, um, the other wing of my business, which is my personal training, which I still.

operate. So I have two businesses essentially. And although I serve my clients online, 90 percent of my clients are from the Seattle area because I market locally and people in the Seattle area still want an online personal training experience. And I think Molly, You know, you put that perfectly when someone is local to you.

I mean, that, that creates familiarity, trust, and connection. And so if you've got three choices. three people you don't know, all of a sudden you've got this one person who you can relate to in this way. I think that for any service provider that could be serving their local community, they should be serving their local community because you have people locally who need what you do.

And when you are marketing yourself locally, you're competing with such a smaller pool of people. Local SEO is easier than broad reach SEO. Just because you're marketing locally doesn't mean you can't serve people outside your local region. Right? People will still find you. I have clients in LA. I have clients in Massachusetts.

But most of my clients are from Seattle. People in other states still find me. They still hire me. But more people find me from Washington, and I want to be clear. She's not saying if you don't want to ever see anyone in person, we'll use the adult sleep coach, health coach example. You don't want to actually go physically see people in person at a coffee shop or you don't have an office space.

That's not necessarily what this is about. If you want to expand on that. Yeah. I mean, I guess I don't quite, I don't know quite how to expand on that except for to say you don't have to see people in person. And when you see when you. work with a local clientele virtually, you have the option of seeing them in person.

So every once in a while, I will do an in person consult because there's a reason for it, right? Virtual works great. Most of the time, every once in a while, there's a reason why hands on is better or face to face is better. And then I can do that. I have one of my online coaching clients that I do visit in person once a month, because we've decided for that person that that makes the most sense and I have the capacity to do that.

So it gives you an option to do a little bit of in person work if you want to. You could keep it all online as well, right? It just gives you more flexibility in how you serve people. Yeah, I agree. Let's talk about a little bit more of like what that would look like marketing yourself locally, even though you could potentially see people virtually anywhere.

So when you market, When you use local SEO, you have all of a sudden this extra toolkit relative to traditional SEO, which let's, let's call that website optimization, right? Traditional SEO, we think about what can we do on our website with local SEO? It's a lot of it is off website optimization. Okay. And so what that means is.

using tools like Google Business Profile, which is a free tool provided by Google that allows you to gain access to the listings in what's called the map pack. So if you were to go to Google and type in, you know, chiropractor and you get the map and there's three results under that and it'll say, see more places, you know, that's the map pack.

And that comes up even before the organic search listings. So it's an additional way to get found in the Google search results. One way is in the organic search results, the 10 blue links. One way is in those map listings. And you have to have a Google business profile to get listed in the map listings.

Okay, cool. Okay. It also gives you a place to collect reviews, which strengthens that profile. Also allows you to take those reviews and put them on your own website. So the Google business profile is really, really valuable. It gives you this whole additional way to get found when it comes to local SEO.

You can also focus on getting links to your website from other local businesses. So one of the pillars of SEO is getting links from other websites to your website, whether you're a local business, whether you're a purely online business, whether you're an e commerce business, it doesn't matter. Google uses links from other websites back to your website as a trust signal.

Because Google is a robot, right? It doesn't know how to trust, but it'll look and it'll say, okay, if, you know, this person trusts her by linking back to her services, then maybe I can trust her too. And if you're a local business, you want most of those links coming from other local businesses, because that's a signal to Google that you operate in a certain region and it.

It strengthens all of the other signals that Google is collecting from your Google business profile, from the words on your website, right? It's an additional signal that this person operates in the Seattle metro area, or in the Chicago land area, right? So, Google business profile, Getting those local backlinks.

And then there's stuff that you can do on your own website with regard to creating locally themed content, publishing reviews from local customers, embedding a Google map, right? There's things you can do on your website as well that help amplify those signals. But you have these additional off page things you can do as well.

Yeah. Like, like the plugins. Is that what you mean for your website or no? Yeah. Not a, not a plugin. So, um, you know, the off page stuff is like the Google business profile, the links on your website. It's going to be things like local keywords, making sure you talk about where you work, making sure you're embedding your Google map, making sure you are creating content around local themes.

using your blog to write about things of local relevance. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Well, you said in bed, Google map, my brain went to like a plugin that would do that for you. So I see what you're saying now. Yeah. Okay. So another thing is talking about like authority, cause I know that's something that's really important to Google.

I worked with someone years ago for my SEO and we said, I need to, she doesn't do any more, but I was like, I need to, I need to hire Laura. And And I'll never forget one of the questions she asked was like, what's your college degree? And I was like, why, why are you asking me that? I was like, well, I went to university of Alabama.

My degree is in public relations and marketing. She's like, well, that needs to be like, that's a good, like that's your minority. Yeah. Yeah. So with there being so many different types of like health and life coaching certifications, how do you typically, how would you navigate that like in terms of the credibility?

Um, so credibility is really, really important, especially for anyone operating within the health and wellness space. So Google treats topics related to finance and health and wellness differently than other topics. It holds those websites to a higher standard because that information has such potential to disrupt lives.

or improve lives, right? But they, they hold you to a higher standard. And so it's really important that you talk about your credentials and that you stay within your scope in the content that you create. In terms of how do you talk about your credentials, make sure you have a solid about page. I think, I mean, starting from the homepage, everyone puts a little about me blurb, talk about your credentials there on your about page, talk about your credentials in your blog, have an author bio at the end.

That talks about your credentials, but then it's also about demonstrating. It's not only listing your credentials, but demonstrating your experience and expertise. And you do that through social proof. So listing testimonials on your website and also in the content that you're creating on your blog, talking about your experience, talking about your personal transformation, giving many case studies about clients you've worked with, right?

Like writing from Your personal experience as opposed to just being an encyclopedia. Yeah. Is a really important way of creating authority and demonstrating your expertise. So can you talk about the difference you talk about staying in your scope? So I'm going to use the personal trainer example, like, okay, I'm a personal trainer.

I'm not a physical therapist. Can you kind of talk about like maybe mistakes you could make as a personal trainer and writing your content of like, Ooh, wait, hold on. You're outside your Would it be like, this is how I can give you, I can give you a very personal example. Okay. I figured you had one. So that's why I was like, yeah, yeah.

So Google has been making a lot of updates to its algorithms over the past few years. to one, hold health and wellness professionals to a higher standard and to make sure and to prioritize content that demonstrates qualities of experience, expertise, authority, and trustworthiness. And they've made several iterations.

to, uh, to their, to their algorithms related to this. In September, my website got hit really, really hard. I lost a lot of traffic in September. And when I went back to look at the type of traffic I lost, and maybe we could even talk about it a little differently and say, When I look at who gained the traffic, I lost, uh, the folks who gained the traffic I lost were chiropractors and physical therapists.

Okay. Because a lot of my content was written around, you know, topics related to diastasis recti and like prolapse and like these kind of medicalized conditions. Right. And so Google is prioritizing content on those subjects. They're prioritizing folks who have medical degrees, okay? The stuff that personal trainers are still ranking really well for is much more closely tied to topics around exercise.

not surprisingly, and more colloquial discussions of some of these medical conditions. So when I look at other personal trainers who have articles that are still ranking really well in these topics, instead of talking about diastasis recti, they're talking about coning and doming. Ah, do you see what I mean?

Yes. So I would still argue it was within my scope to write about those subjects. I don't feel like I was outside of my scope, but Google wants to make sure that medical topics are being covered by people with the credentials to write about them. And so we can get angry about it, or we can just look at what's working and lean into that.

Now, the other thing that people are doing, and maybe this is a little bit of, uh, of a side note here, you know, you can look at websites like Healthline and WebMD and, you know, a lot of these sites are also ranking really well for topics that I would argue they have no business writing about. Yeah. You know, cause they have like SEO writers writing a lot of blog posts about things that I think they have no business writing about, but the way they're getting around it is by having a medical advisory board.

And so there's just a stamp at the top of those blog posts saying medically reviewed by Dr. So and so. And so it's just another demonstration of what they're valuing and, and so I think like as someone who might have a non medical credential in the health and wellness space, and so talking about personal trainers, nutrition coaches and nutrition consultants, um, who else are we talking about here?

Health coaches. Yeah. It's worth doing a little bit of your own poking around on the subjects you want to write about and go Google them and see who, see what types of websites are being prioritized in the search results. And if there's something you want to write about and the top 10 results are being returned by doctors.

Yeah. Or physical therapists or people with medical degree. See if you can tweak your topic a little bit. Or find something else that is like a little bit more firmly within your scope to talk about. Yeah, we're using that adult, you know, sleep coach example. I'm thinking that it would be like, alright, sleep apnea.

Medical. Mm hmm. Night waking, maybe, would be more like, or I don't know, you'd have to do research on the actual keywords, but. Yeah, I think you'd have to do research on the actual keywords, um, but I, I think sleep apnea is probably a great example. Like I would, I would hazard to guess, I have not gone and done any research on this keyword, but that does sound like something that might be covered more by like sleep clinics with sleep apnea.

That employ doctors, right? But questions about sleep hygiene or questions about like, how can I fall asleep in under 30 minutes? Those type of questions that are a little bit more general in scope or a, or a more, more lifestyle in nature would probably still be ones that you could quite easily get ranked for.

So let's keep that example though. And then let's marry it with your talking about marketing locally, where it is like the local other than the Google business profile, where does the local part come in? So when we're talking about creating blog content around local themes, what you can think about one that I really love is interviewing other local practitioners.

So if you are a pediatric sleep coach, maybe you could also Interview like a postpartum doula or maybe you could interview, you know, a cloth diaper wearing or like a cloth diapering expert or a lactation consultant, right? Like you can, um, interview other. providers that have a similar audience as you, but are non competing.

And then you get to highlight these local practitioners. You get to throw in all these local keywords. Now you've also made this connection. It's an amazing networking opportunity. Maybe they link to your article from their website. Or maybe they just keep you in mind next time they have a client who needs a sleep coach, right?

And we teach all of our, we teach, I teach that inside of a holistic marketing hub of like how to make those posts on Instagram, which is different, I know, than your website. But we also do it for our Instagram management clients where we'll email them and be like, Hey, can you give us five, sometimes it's complimentary providers, sometimes it's just.

Where's your favorite coffee shop, restaurant, boutique, you know, like in about town. And how this all started was when I first started teaching Instagram marketing. It was right when everything shut down in 2020. It's so funny because I had a chiropractor who was my friend. She was Molly. If you're wanting to do a course.

And you're wanting to market to chiropractors. You need to start selling it right now because we're all about to be home for, you know, what we thought was a couple of weeks. Um, yeah, she was right. And so the first thing I thought, what, what even brought me to this idea was, okay, you remember that's when people started doing like curbside takeout and stuff.

I was like, well, if you're a local. Brick and mortar massage therapist or chiropractor or whatever. Like, how do we make your account like this destination, this resource for people in the community of, Hey, this person's providing local to take out. And then that's what kind of like spiraled my whole thoughts on this of like.

Yeah. Then you get to be a local resource in the community. And then this might feel unrelated, but it just, it came to my brain. Um, uh, one woman who's actually in my course, I met her at a, she's a life coach for women specifically like military spouses, which I think is such a cool niche because being a former military spouse myself and I met her, she went to all the chamber of commerce events.

Yeah. So just like, even if we're stepping aside from SEO and just talking about online business in general, like so much can be done and grown locally. networking. Yeah. I think when you, when you decide to market your business locally, it just opens up so many opportunities for you. I mean, you can go and stick your business card in local businesses that cater to the same type of clientele that you might cater to, right?

There's, there's so many things that you can do once you are. Once you narrow that geographic focus, um, and like I said, it doesn't limit your ability to serve people. No. In a wider geographic zone, all it does is serve people. Is increase your visibility locally. Yeah. And I think it makes the whole online business world feel like less of an uphill battle.

Like I'm swimming upstream. I'm trying to, someone noticed me, someone see me, you know, like it's, so I know you've got a wrap up, but I want to see if we could just answer one more quick question and talk about how to find you. You talked about in the beginning, you were taking these 22, you know, Instagram captions or 2200 characters, and you were taking those and you were putting them on your website.

And so I think I just want to point out. That this isn't something that has to be, Oh, I have to write all this content for Instagram. And now I have to write all this stuff for my blog. The two things can be repurposed or, you know, optimized for each platform. So if you were to give like a main tip of the difference in a blog post versus like a 2, 200 character Instagram caption, what would you say with like the changes you made?

So I would keyword it. So I would keyword it for Instagram now too. Yeah. So. I don't know if the keywords are exactly the same, but like, I would, I would choose a good keyword that you're going to use in your title, that you're going to use in like your SEO titles and meta descriptions and all that stuff, if you know what I'm talking about.

I would add some sub headlines, break it up, and I would flesh it out where I can. I mean, I, I think a lot of times for myself, when I write a 2200 word caption, I am limited. Yeah. And there's always more that I want to say. And your blog is where you get to say that. And so in general, longer content does better online, but it's got to be high quality content.

So I'm not saying go and like blow up your caption just for the sake of making it, you know, 3000 words, but take the opportunity to flesh things out that you couldn't really get into on Instagram. And sometimes you can also, like, if you, We're on a, you know, if you were on a theme for a week, sometimes you can take a couple captions and sort of weave them together to make a longer blog post.

But I think those are the, the, the two big things. And I, I have a blog post that I could send you guys to, if you, if you'd like me to like specifically on how to adopt your Instagram content for your blog. Yes. Oh my gosh. Yeah. So I'll send that to you after this, but coming up with a great keyword so that it can be found in search and fleshing the content out so that it's a more comprehensive.

Resource, but so much easier than starting from scratch blog post from scratch. So for the people who do feel like this is like quite an undertaking, is there a rule of thumb? That's like a minimum blog post link or I don't know. There's probably not like an exact. There's not, you will find the number 500 words online, but it has no basis in anything.

So, you know, Google. So Google's not going to be able to play with that. So Google doesn't have an official line on length, but what you will see is that you know, the top ranking results for almost anything are going to be longer, probably longer than 500 words to be honest. Okay. Because a blog post should answer a question completely.

Okay. And so if someone is landing on your blog post and immediately bouncing back to the search results to look for something more comprehensive, Google is paying attention to that. Okay. So if you can answer a question completely in 500 words, great. Okay. Most of the time you need a little more length.

I would worry less about the number of words and more about did you answer the question thoroughly or address the topic in your title, right? Whether that's a question or an idea. Did you flesh this idea out thoroughly? So if someone lands on this and reads it, they feel satisfied. Or are they going to have to go back to the search results to find it?

Answer that they really want. Doesn't Google ask you that now? Like, did this answer your question? Does it? That sounds familiar. I don't know if I think it does or if that's just a plugin. Some people have, I don't know. Okay. Well, Laura, you're going to send us that blog post, but tell us how else we can work with you.

Find you. Yeah, absolutely. So you can find me at my website of course. And so that is large wad marketing. com and I'm on Instagram at large wad fitness. And I would love to share something with your audience, if that's okay. Please. So I have, um, what is called the SEO kickstart kit and it's a collection of five SEO checklists designed to help you tune up your website to attract more of your target audience.

And it contains within it, one of those five checklists is a local SEO checklist. And so for folks who are listening to this and. Would appreciate just a itemized to do list that summarizes a lot of what we've talked about that will be in there. And so you can find that on my website, largewebmarketing.

com forward slash SEO dash kickstart dash kit. Yeah. I'll see that link as well. Awesome. Thank you so much. This was super helpful. You've got my wheels turning now. I'm like, great. Now I've got so much. Like I got so many ideas. Thank you. We did our job done. Awesome. Thank you so much for having me on Molly.

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